Garden Variety

Oscar de la Renta’s garden at his home in the Dominican Republic. Photo: William Waldron

Architectural Digest’s recent feature about fashion designer Oscar de la Renta’s garden in the Dominican Republic (“Paradise Found,” July 2012) was the perfect welcome as I took on my new role as the magazine’s contributing garden editor. Almost three decades ago, it was Oscar’s late wife, Françoise, who introduced me to the New York publishing world, taking a risk on this just-off-the-boat garden writer and sending me on my first serious magazine assignment.

My debut was for House & Garden, where she was an editor, and for it I flew to the Dominican Republic, on my way to an elegant, orchid-filled paradise in Santiago de los Caballeros that belonged to the fashion designer’s friend Gustavo Tavares. My introduction to international reportage and etiqueta tropical was a beautiful luncheon in the open-air dining room of Gustavo’s house, Villa Pancha. The Vanda orchids outside were 30 years old and ten feet high. Cattleya,Ascocenda, and Renanthera orchids decorated huge tree ferns, a winding tunnel was draped with Thunbergia, and a tropical jardín blanco brimmed with snowy Rex jasmine. And there I sat with Oscar and Gustavo, in the midst of fresh gardens and crisp linens, grimy and wilted in two-day-old clothes. (The airline had lost my bags. Some things about my work never change.) “I will have something sent over,” Oscar offered. “What are you? A size four?”

The designer with his dogs. Photo: William Waldron

I have not been a size four since I was age four, but it was the nicest thing he could have said to a nervous neophyte. A bit embarrassed, I looked down at the table only to see an enormous white vegetal disk—almost as big as the salad plate—being set before me. Sensing my wonder, Oscar declared, “Well, Gustavo, these are likely the largest hearts of palm any of us will ever see.” And turning to me, he pronounced the most kind and generous editorial advice anyone could ever give: “Never be afraid to ask questions. You’ll learn so much.”

Audrey Hepburn in the 1993 PBS miniseries Gardens of the World.
Photo courtesy of Perennial Productions

Villa Pancha was my launchpad for a career of worldwide assignments, always in gardens, always with wonderful people. Nine years after that memorable lunch, a bit of star-studded serendipity took me back to Gustavo’s home. I was asked to scout locations and write for the 1993 PBS television miniseries Gardens of the World, hosted by Audrey Hepburn. (I wrote for the companion book, too.) The series producers had decided I would make the trip of a lifetime and travel the globe in search of the world’s most important and beautiful tropical gardens. Apparently they had dug up that old House & Garden article and decided I was an expert.

A clip from Gardens of the World, in which Hepburn visits Tavares’ orchid garden.
Video courtesy of Perennial Productions

The trip was an astonishing feat. Hard to imagine now, but without the Internet, cell phones, or digital equipment of any kind, we explored ancient and modern gardens and prepared the way for Audrey. Our locations were high in remote mountains of Sri Lanka, in urban Singapore, among the green interior regions of Bali, in a garden in Venezuela that dated from the 1590s, and—circling back around the globe—the Tavares garden in the Dominican Republic. Gardens of the World won an Emmy, but no one realized this would be Audrey’s final on-camera appearance. Yet she left a legacy to all who love gardens: In a seven-minute trailer, the actress spoke beautifully about the age-old urge to create, explore, and enjoy the most ephemeral of all the arts.

The Ernesto Buch–designed chapel at the De la Renta’s Dominican Republic home.
Photo: William Waldron

For me, the garden is any place that’s outside, even when the outside has crept back into the house in the form of greenhouses, conservatories, courtyards, and the like. Curious? Wonderful. Stayed tuned. If you want more details regarding any garden element, designer, landscape architect, or plant you see in Architectural Digest,send me an e-mail. Your queries will drive our choice of topics. Remember: Never be afraid to ask questions.